Page 9 of The Cuffing Game
“I’m fine,” Mia cut in. “Thanks.”
Ground Smoothie was so infamously hard to find that Noah was ninety-nine percent certain that Mia wouldnotbe “fine.” “Are you sure?”
“Yup.”
Noah let it drop. He was fully grinning now. Her stubbornness to do everything herself reminded him of his Little, Thad, whenhewas a first year. The best he could do, he’d learned, was provide his contact information so they could reach out to him if they needed help.
When he gave her his number, Mia made a face, like she found the very gesture highly offensive.
“Right,” she said. “See you.”
Chapter Four
Mia
It took Mia the rest of the week to get over the full force of Noah’s real smile. Or the fact that he’d just casually given her his number. Everything about him was so infuriating. His personality, his good looks...everything.
No one should be that hot,she thought as she followed Google’s directions to Ground Smoothie.
She shuddered. Debating him from all the way across the lecture hall was one thing, but beingthatclose to Noah had been nerve-racking. Her legs had shaken the entire time. And she had barely been able to think straight.
Was this how people felt whenever they did VIP meet and greets with K-pop stars? But Noah wasn’t even an actual celebrity. And he was more like an antihero protagonist of a K-drama than a member of BTS.
Thank God she’d taken notes to prepare for their conversation. Her mind would have gone blank otherwise.
The directions on her phone led her to C Dorm, but she couldn’t find any signs for Ground Smoothie. She made three laps around the dorm before giving up.
Of course, Noah would tell her to meet him at some weird, fake location.
She thought about calling him, but she doubted he’d given her his real number. If he was that worried about sasaeng fans, why would he give her his contact information so easily? This was probably all just one big prank.
She sighed and started to walk away.
“Hey, over here!”
Mia followed the sound of Noah’s voice. He stood in front of the very dorm she’d just walked past several times.
Tonight, Noah was wearing khaki shorts and a navy-blue tank, and Mia realized this was the first time she was seeing him wear casual clothes in person. Sure, he’d been shirtless at the Alpha Tau party, and he wore all sorts of outfits in his videos, but he normally wore only long-sleeved dress shirts and other relatively formal clothes to class.
Mia tried not to stare at his shoulders, zeroing in on his face instead.
“Ground Smoothie isinC Dorm?” she asked. “Why didn’t you just say that?”
“Well, it’s not. It just looks like it. Ground Smoothie wasthe original dining hall for all first years, before they built a bigger one between B and C. And hey, I offered to help.”
Mia frowned as they made their way to the other side of C Dorm. This time, she could clearly see how what she’d assumed was part of C Dorm was an awkwardly shaped, separate structure with its own entrance and set of windows.The buildings were so similarly painted that there was no way she could have ever distinguished between the two on her own.
She hated to admit it, but Noah was right. She could have used his help.
Noah walked to the door with the leisurely gait of someone who’d been down this same path countless times. A flash of envy shot through Mia. She wished she had even an ounce of his self-assuredness, something she painfully lacked as a freshman who still got lost around campus without—and sometimes even with—Google Maps.
I just got here a couple months ago,Mia reminded herself as she followed Noah.It’d be weird if I knew everything already.
Noah pulled open the heavy door, his arm muscles straining from the weight. This time, Mia couldn’t stop herself from staring. Wow, Noahdefinitelyworked out.
“Um,” he said. “Ladies first.”
It took Mia a couple seconds to realize that Noah was staring back ather.
